


Pool Party

by ClaraxBarton



Series: VegasLand [1]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Grad School AU, Las Vegas, M/M, Mandatory Fun Day, Sassy Natasha Romanov, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 06:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Natasha followed his gaze.“So, you clearly have a type,” she said, sounding amused.“Huh?”“You have a type. Disaster blonds.”“I don’t-”“Wait, you know him?”Natasha smirked.“He’s my roommate.”“Does he have a name?”“Sure does. Even has a birthday and an astrological sign and a safeword. You should ask him about all of those.”





	Pool Party

**Author's Note:**

> As always, all the thanks to Ro. I dunno how or why you chose me but damn if I'm not lucky for it.  
> \--  
> \--  
> \--  
> \--

 

Bucky sipped on his beer and tried his best to let the sun melt him into a puddle.

 

_ It’ll be fun _ , Steve had said.

 

_ Las Vegas in the summer isn’t that bad _ , Steve had said.

 

_ You need to get out more, Buck _ , Steve had said.

 

_ There’s someone I want you to meet _ , Steve had said.

 

_ You owe me _ , Steve had said.

 

Well, fuck Steve, Bucky decided, too late. 

 

Because yeah, like always, Steve guilt-tripped Bucky into tagging along on his newest bad idea. So, instead of prepping material for the eight AM Digital Logic Design class he had on Monday morning, he was here. At a pool party being thrown by Tony Stark, surrounded by people he didn’t know and didn’t really  _ want _ to know.

 

Bucky knew Tony, kind of.Tony Stark was a second year PhD Nuclear Engineering student, to Bucky’s second year PhD/MS Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences self. They were both engineers, both under the Howard Hughes School of Engineering umbrella, and had fought for lab time once last year. But, as a general rule, the mechanical engineers and the electrical engineers stayed away from each other unless forced to interact.

 

Which meant Tony had  _ not _ invited Bucky to the pool party.

 

Tony  _ had _ invited Steve, because Tony was trying to get into Steve’s pants, and apparently they had met in line at the campus Starbucks last week when Steve was dropping off the last of his paperwork for his assistantship, and Tony had been a shameless flirt and, if there was anything guaranteed to win Steve’s heart, it was shamelessness.

 

So, here they were. Steve practically glued to Tony’s side as Tony played the role of distracted host/wannabe boyfriend/or at least top of Steve’s booty-call list, and Bucky glowering at the half-naked people frolicking in the pool and drinking and, he supposed, having a generally good time.

 

The thing that he really didn’t get - the thing that just kept him up at night sometimes - was why the  _ fuck _ Steve wanted to go to grad school in the fucking desert when they had both spent too many fucking tours in Iraq when they were in the Army. And Steve had even done three  _ more _ tours in Iraq after Bucky’s medical discharge. 

 

There were plenty of schools on the east coast - hell, there were schools back home in  _ Brooklyn _ Steve could have decided to go to. But no, as soon as Steve had stepped off the airplane and into McCarran airport when he and Bucky traveled to Las Vegas to tour the school two years ago, Steve was sold.  So, of course, Bucky had applied and been accepted into the graduate engineering program of his choice, and he’d suffered through a damn year out here on his own while Steve finished up his BFA at Stony Brook.

 

But now they were here, and Steve was flirting with a hot, brilliant guy and his pale, Irish skin was glowing, and he looked golden and glorious and happy. And Bucky had his back to a wall, a shitty craft beer in his hand that wasn’t quite shitty enough to remind him of shitty local Brooklyn beer, glowering at the nearly-naked people having a good time.

 

“Not that I care, but are you and Captain America in an open relationship, or are you going to murder Tony in his sleep when he finally gets your boy to fuck him into the floor?”

 

The question, and the person who asked the question, startled Bucky so badly that he choked on his beer and ended up spitting half of it all over himself.

 

He turned to glare down at the red-haired woman who had seemingly materialized from thin air at his side.

 

She was sipping from a red solo cup, and wearing a red bikini, red lipstick and red flip-flops. He was sensing a theme.

 

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, and then, “Do I know you?” Because things were better. Bucky had had a full year of therapy and PT before he even started his undergrad degree back home, and he was still, six years after getting blown up, seeing a therapist regularly. But that didn’t mean things were  _ perfect _ . And sometimes, Bucky still found himself waking up after a night of nightmares and drinking and awful life choices next to complete strangers.

 

He was pretty sure he would remember  _ this _ stranger, though.

 

She smirked up at him, red lips curving sharply. She looked terrifying.

 

“Not yet,” she said after letting him languish for a full minute. “I’m Natasha.” She held out one slim hand - nails painted red - and Bucky switched his beer to his shitty left hand so that he could shake her hand properly.

 

“Bucky.”

 

“I know. Bucky Barnes. Tony’s bitched and moaned about you since last year.”

 

“Are you in the Engineering program?” Bucky asked. He was pretty sure he would know, though. She wasn’t the kind of person he would forget.

 

“Hell no. Hospitality.”

 

Bucky nodded. He had met a few of her type over the last year. Las Vegas apparently had one of the best programs for hospitality service in the country, which made a lot of sense considering the entire city existed almost solely to cater to tourism.

 

“How do you two know each other?” he had to ask, because UNLV was a huge school. It wasn’t the type of place where you just ran into people on campus routinely.

 

“Underground poker game. He lost a Ferrari to me last year, and he’s been buttering me up ever since hoping I’ll lose it back to him.”

 

He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, and decided it was probably safer  _ not _ to know.

 

“So, you and Steve,” she prompted after letting Bucky get in a few sips of beer.

 

“What about us?”

 

She rolled her eyes at him.

 

“Are you going to cut off Tony’s dick if he makes a move?”

 

“This  _ isn’t _ him making a move?” Bucky asked, and gestured to where Tony and Steve were standing. Tony was running a finger over the waistband of Steve’s swim trunks, and Steve was honest to fuck  _ blushing _ .

 

Or was he getting a sunburn? Shit. Stupid fucker probably hadn’t reapplied his sunblock in over an hour.

 

“No,” Natasha said, expression serious. “Tony making a move is more like him jumping into your boy’s arms and begging to be fucked. He’s not subtle. At all.”

 

“Good. Because Steve isn’t either.”

 

“You’re really okay with your boy sleeping around?”

 

“He’s not  _ mine _ ,” Bucky growled. Why did people always assume he and Steve were a couple? “We fuck sometimes, and he’s my best friend. We’re not dating. Tony wants to throw himself onto Steve’s dick and take a ride, he’s welcome to do it. I still might kill him in his sleep, though, if he keeps stealing circuit boards from the undergrad lab space.”

 

Natasha smirked.

 

“I like you.”

 

“I’m a likeable guy,” Bucky countered.

 

Natasha snorted in amused disagreement, but she didn’t move away, and for awhile, they stood at the fringe of the party and enjoyed drinking and glowering in silence together.

 

But then Bucky saw him.

 

Fair-haired, tanned, built, miles of gorgeous skin on display except for what was covered by a pair of tiny black and white trunks, and what looked like bright purple BTEs.

 

The guy was hot - which, in and of itself, didn’t really surprise Bucky. Tony Stark apparently knew a  _ lot _ of attractive people.

 

He was also at a pool party, legs in the water, sitting alone, drinking coffee.

 

Coffee.

 

Bucky desperately wanted a cup of coffee right now. Actually, he desperately wanted to share hot guy’s cup of coffee. 

 

Natasha followed his gaze.

 

“So, you clearly have a type,” she said, sounding amused.

 

“Huh?” Bucky didn’t bother to look at her. He was pretty sure hot guy had a tattoo on the inside of his left wrist, but Bucky couldn’t quite make it out from his current position.

 

“You have a  _ type _ . Disaster blonds.”

 

“I don’t-” Bucky stopped himself, because Steve Rogers, if he had to be boiled down into just two words that weren’t aggressively political, could definitely be characterized as a Disaster Blond. Now that he thought about it, though, Steve was not the only Disaster Blond he had dated. There had been that reporter in Paris, and the-

 

“Wait, you know him?” Bucky backtracked, verbally and mentally.

 

Natasha smirked.

 

“He’s my roommate.”

 

“Does he have a name?”

 

“Sure does. Even has a birthday and an astrological sign and a safeword. You should ask him about all of those.”

 

Bucky spared her a glare. 

 

She just raised her eyebrows at him, silently daring him and judging him at the same time.

 

“We should drink and be antisocial together again,” Bucky decided as he started to walk towards the Disaster Blond. “You’re scary as shit.”

 

She gave him a genuine smile, and for a moment looked almost insufferably cute.

 

“Right back at you.”

 

Bucky managed to make it all the way over to the Disaster Blond’s side without incident, but as soon as he sat down beside him and put his feet into the pool, he realized he hadn’t tried to flirt with anyone sober since before getting blown up in Iraq six years ago.

 

Fuck.

 

Disaster Blond looked over at him, one eyebrow raised, and took another sip from his coffee mug.

 

This close, Bucky could actually smell the coffee.

 

He could also clearly make out the tattoo on the Disaster Blond’s left wrist. It was, Bucky was something like ninety-nine percent sure, the symbol for the Deathly Hallows.

 

“You’re a nerd,” Bucky grinned.

 

Disaster Blond swallowed his mouthful of coffee and then lowered his mug and stared.

 

And Bucky…

 

Bucky should just jump into the pool and drown himself.

 

_ You’re a nerd? _

 

What the  _ fuck _ ?

 

That was not a pickup line. That was not a line that even Steve Rogers, the most Disaster of Disaster Blonds, would have attempted to use.

 

Bucky closed his eyes and had a very stern mental lecture with himself.

 

_ You are Bucky Barnes. You are smooth and cool. I did not raise you to walk up to a hot guy and call him a nerd. Do better. You did not survive three years in the Army, twenty-five years as Steve Rogers’ best friend and three younger sisters just to crash and burn at Tony fucking Stark’s pool party. _

 

“I am too,” Bucky said after taking a deep breath and opening his eyes. “I’m a nerd,” he added, and gestured toward Disaster Blond’s tattoo.

 

Disaster Blond followed his gaze to the tattoo, and then grinned, wide and bright, and it made Bucky’s heart stutter.

 

“Yeah? So what house are you?” Disaster Blond had a nice voice, a little gravely, as if he had just woken up, but warm and low. 

 

Bucky wanted to do filthy things to him and hear him moan his name.

 

He cleared his throat before answering.

 

“Hufflepuff.”

 

Disaster Blond’s grin only grew, and he held out his coffee mug. Bucky tapped his beer bottle against it.

 

“Cheers to Team Hufflepuff,” he said before taking a sip of his coffee. “I’m Clint, by the way.”

 

“Bucky.”

 

“How do you know Tony?” Clint asked.

 

“He’s trying to sleep with my roommate,” Bucky said, and gestured to Steve and Tony, who had finally made it  _ into _ the pool and were splashing each other and laughing and so very clearly five seconds away from making out, it was excruciating.

 

“Damn. Tony does have good taste.” Clint’s grin turned into a bit of a smirk.

 

Bucky rolled his shoulders in a shrug. Sure, Clint was right about that, but Bucky still didn’t like Tony.

 

“What about you?” Clint asked.

 

Bucky frowned.

 

“I’ve already slept with him.”

 

Clint stared, and Bucky realized that Clint hadn’t actually been asking about  _ that _ . Actually, he wasn’t sure  _ what _ Clint had been asking him.

 

Judging from the crooked slant of Clint’s smirk, Bucky had answered the question - whatever it was - the right way.

 

Bucky felt himself blush, which wasn’t something he thought he was still capable of doing after shitting in bedpans for attractive nurses, but, here they were.

 

“So, what about you?” Bucky asked.

 

“Have I slept with your roommate? Or how do I know Tony?” Clint’s grin was still crooked.

 

“I thought you said you were a Hufflepuff,” Bucky groused.

 

Clint leaned close enough to knock their shoulders together, his skin warm and smooth against Bucky’s t-shirt-covered self.

 

“Never seen the guy before. And I know Tony from… the shitty mixer our first year as grad students, and from Nat cleaning him out every other Friday when they play poker, and we go out clubbing together sometimes.”

 

Bucky nodded. That kind of sounded like Clint knew Tony fairly well. Kind of sounding like he and Tony might have - might be? - dating.

 

But Clint didn’t seem at all concerned about Tony and Steve sinking down in the water together and Tony backing Steve up against the side of the pool and saying something in his ear that made Steve turn bright red.

 

Or was he sunburnt? Bucky could  _ hear _ Sarah Rogers reprimanding him for letting Steve get sunburned.

 

“You’re a grad student? What program?” Bucky asked, forcing himself to look away. If Steve got his ass burned, that was on him. Bucky was not his keeper.

 

“Anthropology. You?”

 

“Electrical Engineering and Math Science.”

 

Clint nodded and drank more of his coffee. It was killing Bucky.

 

“ _ Where  _ did you get the coffee?” he asked.

 

Clint smirked.

 

“You want some?”

 

“Hell yes.”

 

Clint’s smirk turned appraising.

 

“What are you willing to trade for it?”

 

Under the water, Clint settled his foot against Bucky’s, making it abundantly clear what he wanted Bucky to barter with.

 

“Let me take a sip so I know how much of me this might be worth.”

 

Clint rolled his eyes, but he passed over the mug.

 

Bucky took a sip. It was good, rich and not even a little bitter. He closed his eyes and sighed.

 

Clint took the mug back.

 

“Well?” Clint asked him.

 

Bucky opened his eyes and looked him up and down.

 

“I’ll blow you, but it’ll be better after I drink the coffee.”

 

Clint blinked at him, staring in shock.

 

“You’re serious,” Clint realized. Before Bucky could feel too weird or dumb about it, Clint grinned. “God damn, this is the best pool party Tony’s ever thrown. C’mon. Let’s get you caffeinated so I can see what your mouth looks like on my cock.”

 

-o-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So, I went to grad school in Las Vegas and I've been aching to write more Vegas things recently. Maybe it's all this cold Northeastern weather. ANYWAY. I'm going to write a series of loosely connected one shots, basically a grad school AU, with Winterhawk as the main focus but will feature other pairings and characters.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Pool Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304628) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)




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